266 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



cause they are the best beef-cattle of any we have. But the 

 English breeders did not, neither have any of the breed- 

 ers in this country, so far as I know, even up to the present 

 time, attempted to develop their milking qualities, though I am 

 told by a friend from the college at Amherst, that they are 

 designing to make an effort to accomplish this most desirable 

 result. I am sure that the breeder of cattle who will com- 

 bine the two together (it may take generations to do it) , and 

 get in the same breed first-rate qualities for milk and butter, 

 and also for beef, will be a great benefactor of his race. I 

 assume that this is possible, from the fact that some of those 

 animals that have been raised purely for beef have come to 

 be, hap-hazard, excellent for milk, as in the cases to which I 

 have alluded. I was on the committee at the Worcester show 

 last fall, and saw a grade cow — a native Durham, I think — 

 that had given twenty-six quarts of milk a day for months. 

 But very few pure-bloods have ever eome up to that. 



I do not believe, as I have "said, that it is impossible to 

 make this change, and I am told by the head of the agricul- 

 tural department at the Amherst college, who has witnessed 

 stock-raising in England to some considerable extent, and 

 also in this country, that he does not believe it is impossible, 

 and that they are endeavoring to produce this great desidera- 

 tum, the bringing together of first-rate butter and milk qual- 

 ities with first-rate beef qualities. When you have accom- 

 plished that, you have got a perfect animal. I believe it will 

 be done in the next fifty years, and I want to see measures 

 inaugurated to do it. Talk about the impossibility of doing 

 it ! Why, if it has been done in a hap-hazard way, can it 

 not be done on system, and a race of cows produced that 

 shall be just as certain to produce their like for milk and but- 

 ter as they are for beef? 



Mr. Slade, of Somerset. I understand that Dr. Wake- 

 field, a member of the Board, has an interesting paper which 

 it would be proper to have read at this stage of the discus- 

 sion. I move that he be invited to present it. 



The motion was carried, when Dr. Wakefield presented 

 the following, — 



